By KATIE ARCIERI, Staff Writer, Capital Gazette

By Reed Hellman, STAFF WRITER, January 7, 2008, The Business Monthly

From left to right: Jason Silva, COO; Mark Powell, CEO, & Vin Hardick, CTO of Sidus Group

"Sidus is a grouping of stars in a constellation or heavenly body."

It's easy to note that touch of pride in Mark Powell's voice when he explains the meaning of his company's name, then adds, "We're a group of people who have combined to produce more than the sum of our parts."

Founded in 1999 as a web and data services firm, Sidus Group has developed and implemented a range of successful answers to data, network and Internet problems for more than 500 clients. Today, its products and services fall into four disciplines: datacenter management, web services, enterprise solutions and multimedia productions.

Located in Annapolis, Sidus Group developed and operates the only Class A datacenter in Anne Arundel County. "We are a high-level hosting company," said Powell, the CEO. Sidus Group maintains a secure, reliable facility with redundant systems and a high level of bandwidth. Its datacenter provides managed hosting and collocation services for more than 35,000 domains, including countless commercial and governmental clients like the state of Maryland and federal agencies.

Web services have been one of Sidus Group's core products since its founding and cover the full range of developmental and operational tasks, including initial site design and conception, hosting, disaster recovery, web publishing, portal development and custom programmed applications.

During the past year, its web staff has completed hundreds of projects, integrating design, programming and marketing. Much of the recent work has been for associations such as the Fort Meade Alliance, institutions such as the National Sailing Hall of Fame and governmental agencies such as the Maryland Stadium Authority.

"Companies come to us because we are very vertical in nature," said Powell, describing Sidus Group's focus on enterprise solutions. "We can create a whole application" to help define and put mission-critical IT services in place, supporting clients' business goals. Along with optimizing IT infrastructure, Powell's team can maintain ongoing support services and manage contracts.

Sidus has rounded its portfolio of services through a partnership with MyBIZvid to build multimedia marketing productions, primarily for businesses, nonprofit groups, schools and other organizations. Technology and cost-effective techniques enable the award-winning myBIZvid production team to create competitively priced, high-quality, two- to three-minute online marketing videos.

The group's blend of people and technology seems to be working. On Dec. 12, Sidus received a $4.3 million contract with the Maryland State Board of Education for bar code scanning of assessment tests. It calls for the company to build a software system designed to improve the automated testing and save hours of time at the individual school level.

Powell, the outgoing chairman of the board of the Anne Arundel Tech Council (which has since been renamed the Chesapeake Regional Tech Council), and company recently fostered a community-centered program called Sidus Shares, which is "... a core part of our corporate mentality." The program works primarily with youth, nonprofit and volunteer programs that create significant and measurable results.

"Anne Arundel County is the best place to live ... [and] the economic community is phenomenal," he said, adding that he sees continued growth in 2008. "We are constantly working on our internal operation. We are also working to improve our community. [It's proof that] entrepreneurship is alive and well in Anne Arundel County."